


Upon These Unsettled Waters

by Liitohauki



Series: Lost and Loved [9]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bigotry & Prejudice, Derogatory Language, Fandral just won't take a hint, Gen, Jötunheimr | Jotunheim, Jötunn Loki, Pre-Mjölnir, Thor Takes a Pratfall, dehumanizing pronoun use, raised on Jötunheim, teenagers making bad decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-03-23 10:00:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3763915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liitohauki/pseuds/Liitohauki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor had envisioned a great many things to come of their trip to Jötunheim. This outcome was not one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Unsteady Step

**Author's Note:**

> This one's going to be a bit of a longer installment. Also kind of a big shift in style, since I'll be handling a lot more characters than I'm used to and writing mostly from the point of view of the Asgardians. I'll be posting in small chapters of about 1,500-2,000 words and switching between viewpoints with each chapter. By my estimate, the whole thing's going to end up somewhere around 10,000-12,000 words long. As always, updates will be sporadic, though I'll try to post a new chapter at least every few weeks.
> 
> For context, this story is happening separate from The Witch of the Woods, after a pretty big time skip from the last parts of the series; it's not necessary to read earlier parts of the series to understand this story, but they do offer some background info on the setting and some of the characters.
> 
> Thor, Sif and Fandral are the Asgardian equivalent of sixteen while Hogun is eighteen and Volstagg is twenty-two.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thor doesn't think things through and everyone suffers for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: bigotry towards a made up species, teenagers getting drunk and making bad decisions

A month before his Maturation, Thor decided to go to Jötunheim.

He was able to argue Father and Mother into allowing him the time before the ceremony to go and celebrate with his chosen companions in Álfheim, provided he promised to conduct himself as befit the prince of Asgard. He made his assurances without an ounce of guilt – for surely there was no act more princely than a daring expedition into a dangerous realm to vanquish monsters that had once terrorized the realms!

On Álfheim, it had been easy enough to convince his friends to accompany him, once he’d had them all in their cups so he could ply them with tales of heroic deeds and exotic beasts with succulent meat. A few rousing renditions of “The Giant Slayer”, copious mentions of his upcoming naming day, and a reminder or two of the support Thor had offered each of them, and even Volstagg had forgotten his objections to the venture.

Securing passage to Jötunheim had proven only slightly more difficult; it was an open secret that Álfheim still traded with the savages, a point of strife and tension for many a noble of Asgard, who already viewed the elves as a mercantile and deceitful lot.

Most balked at doing business with the Crown Prince of Asgard, but eventually, Thor found an álf who cared not where the gold came from - so long as there was plenty of it. They had agreed to supply for Thor a portal key, with the warning that the portal was located in a sparsely populated region and would not be large enough for any vehicle or vessel to pass through.

Thor had thought it no issue. They were not looking to enter whatever pitiful excuse for civilization the jötuns had, and he and his companions were hardy enough to travel as far as they needed to on foot.

Oh, how wrong he was.

Thor’s first shock was the sunlight.

Thor had been taught – as had they all – that Jötunheim was a realm of perpetual darkness: a gloomy place of eternal night where the moon rose and fell but the sun did not. What they found instead was a realm of almost unbearable brightness, where the sun’s light was magnified tenfold by the way it reflected off the pristine white snow covering the ground as far as the eye could see.

The cold was more expected, but its intensity still took them all by surprise. It clouded their breath and seeped through their armor near immediately, making them chafe their gloved hands together while hopping from foot to foot to keep the soles of their feet from freezing. Too late Thor realized that he'd dressed poorly for the weather, as the metal in his cuirass robbed his leathers of what little warmth they were able to preserve.

His second shock was the vastness.

It was not that the realm itself was large: thinking on it, it made much sense that the home of giants would itself be giant. It was that it was so large and _empty_. Wherever Thor looked, there was an endless sea of snow. There were no rocks, no trees, no birds or other animals in sound or sight. Nothing but white. The only notable landmark he could make out was a range of mountains looming some distance to the east.

As that was their only marker, they set off towards it with light gaits and laughing hearts. But their good humor was short lived.

They had trekked for perhaps three viker when the sky grew dark with clouds and the winds rose all around them. Thereafter, there followed a blizzard the likes of which they’d never encountered before. The cold wind tore right through their clothing and lashed ice and snow at their faces with such force that they were as blinded by blood dripping into their eyes as they were by the storm.

They pushed on until they grew tired, but there was no shelter in sight. The situation seemed hopeless, until Hogun thought to suggest they dig and pack their own shelter from the snow. They built for themselves a crude hut in which they hid from the elements, huddled close together for what meager warmth they could find. Sif had packed with her a burstcoal, which they activated and set alight in lieu of a proper fire. The magical flames did little to ward off the blizzard’s chill, but it was better than nothing.

Once the worst had passed and they could once more see the mountains looming in the distance, they stumbled on. Each of the Warriors Three suggested turning back, and each time Thor would have none of it. He was too embarrassed to admit he no longer knew their position, as the storm had wiped clean their tracks and their instruments had proven incapable of withstanding these harsh temperatures.

Besides, he didn't want to leave until he had tested his mettle. He would slake his thirst for jötun blood and sup on the largest beasts this realm had to offer, even if it meant traversing the whole of Jötunheim.

His third shock was the green field.

After so much unending white, coming across a field covered in vibrant green plant life was a welcome respite. It was a passing strange sight in the midst of all the ice and cold, to be sure, but Thor found he had not the wherewithal to question it overmuch. “Do mine hungry eyes deceive me? Look there!” Volstagg exclaimed, pointing at something in the distance. Thor squinted, trying to make sense of the vague shapes. At first he was incredulous – the green he would not question, for weeds could sprout most anywhere, but _trees_? – until the shapes moved.

What he had thought bare branches were, instead, antlers; what to his stinging eyes had seemed misshapen trunks were in truth the grey-white bodies of grazing animals. They moved at their leisure, bending their crowned heads down every now and then to feed on whatever it was that sprouted from the ice.

“What are they?” Sif whispered, shading her eyes.

“Dinner,” answered Volstagg, and set off towards the green field.

Thor had no objections to the proclamation. They had walked a long way, and though they had rations aplenty, nothing could match the taste of fresh meat brought down by one's own hand and roasted over an open fire. They stepped onto the field with all haste, eager for their first chance at felling a beast of Jötunheim.

The green of the field was no grass or moss, but some form of seaweed, washed onto the ice and frozen. It crunched loudly under their feet, no matter how carefully they deigned to step. Fortunately, the beasts they were after either couldn’t hear or felt no threat. They continued grazing without care for their approach - even when ahead of Thor, Volstagg faltered to a halt with a loud yell; he was yanking on his right leg, seemingly stuck in something.

Thor traded looks with his companions, and they all ran as one to Volstagg’s aid.

By the time they reached him, Volstagg had pulled himself free and was staring down at the hole that had trapped him. “It seems to me like a warren. What manner of rabbit could burrow through solid ice, I know not,” he mused as Thor drew near, swinging his hand around himself in a wide arc as he continued, “though by the looks of it, they are many.” He had the right of it. Now that Thor cared to examine the ice more closely, he noticed it was pockmarked with deep holes both large and small.

“ _Hymir’s bleeding pisspot!_ ”

Thor turned back to see Fandral stomping his feet and stabbing at the ice with his rapier. “It seems you’ve finally found an opponent you can land a blow against,” Sif quipped, stepping further from the swordsman to avoid his irate flailing. Fandral stopped his stomping to answer with a rueful laugh, “Nay, I fear this foe escapes me.” He gestured down at his feet, which rested near a hole roughly the circumference of Thor’s palm. 

There was a bloody tear in the leather of Fandral’s left boot. “It came out of one of the holes, a furry little creature with a beak as sharp as an ice pick. It was gone near as soon as I turned to see what bit me,” he explained.  They all looked around themselves uneasily. “I suppose this answers the what of it,” Sif stated dryly. She had unsheathed her glaive, and now kept a wary eye on the ground.

Thor silently cursed himself for haring off on this fool’s venture.

“Well, there’s no helping it,” Fandral stated, “we must tread lightly and keep a ready blade. With luck, we might manage to catch one in the act next time such a creature surfaces.”

“Step on bare ice, if you’re able,” Hogun added, “the kelp seems more abundant nearer to the burrows, and it surely hides some holes from sight.” Thor took note, wondering if these creatures were responsible for the seaweed covering the field.

Thereafter, they proceeded with greater caution. Twice more they were attacked – first Sif, then Fandral once again – and neither time could they retaliate, though on the last Fandral managed to leap away before more harm was done. The pests were swift, and there was no end to their escape routes. Thor could hear them scuttling underneath, which left him tense and ill at ease.

Fortunately, the scuttling faded as they made their way closer to their intended target, until it seemed to cease entirely. Thor understood why a moment later, when one of the biters popped out of its hole near a grazing mouth and was promptly eaten.

This close, he could see that what he and his friends were after were _massive_ – twice as tall as any of them, with legs as thick as young tree trunks and antlers so long it was no wonder Thor had first mistaken them for branches.

To Thor, the beasts resembled unusually thick-set elk, but with goat-like orange eyes, wider and blunter noses and long, tufted tails. Their shaggy fur was a mix of grey and brown on their undersides and white on all else, and the hair at their throats was long and beard-like. Thor could just make out a curious black marking on the necks of the elk closest to him, a slim triangular wedge with a striped circle drawn around its sharp point and a wavy line at its round end.

“This herd is a hundred strong, at least, and each looks well capable of trampling us through the ice. We should find a one that has wandered off on its own,” came the assessment from Hogun. Thor scoffed – he could best a herd of these beasts a thousand strong! – but followed Hogun’s suggestion. With the trouble they’d had on this journey, it would serve well not to push their luck.

Once they’d singled out an individual more isolated than the others, they set about to plan their approach. It was decided that Sif, Fandral and Hogun would come at their quarry from behind, shaking their weapons and making enough noise to spook the giant elk into fleeing away from its herd. They would try to steer it towards Thor and Volstagg, who would lie in wait with spears at the ready.

It seemed a sound plan, but before they could execute it, the air was split by a piercing whistle. The beast in front of them lifted its head, ears flicking in interest and eyes scanning its surroundings, before it set off at a steady trot towards the noise.

Thor moved, thinking to intercept before their prey could flee to safety, when something came flying at his head.

Snow burst against his face in a flash of green, blinding and staggering him. He yelled out a warning to Sif and the Three right as the ground buckled from underneath his feet and he was buried to his thighs in ice. He struggled, trying in vain to lift himself with one arm while the other was busy scrubbing at the cold powder that clung stubbornly to his eye lids.

He had barely managed to blink one eye open when he saw another white sphere hurtling towards him.

Thor’s fourth shock struck him senseless.


	2. An Unfortunate Slip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a fight, everyone sees a frost giant for the first time and Sif is not impressed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: dehumanizing pronoun use, mentions of blood and injury, bigotry towards a made up species.

Sif was spinning around before the first missile had fully burst, stance sure and steady while she raked her eyes over the direction the snowball came from. All that met her gaze was a small flurry of snow, already settling. Had someone stood there before? Were the tunnels underneath them large enough to hide combatants?

From the corner of her eye, she saw Thor sink into the ground just before a second snowball felled him. This time she was barely able to catch a glimpse of their attacker – a blue figure a little over her own height – before it disappeared with a laugh in another swirl of snow. 

Frost giant.

She moved to stand guard over their incapacitated prince, and the Warriors Three settled into battle formation around her. 

When the third snowball came, they were ready. Sif cleaved it in two – a blinding flash of green leaving dark spots dancing in her vision – while Hogun launched one of his knives at the direction it came from. The projectile struck with a dull thunk, embedding deep in a thick sheet of ice the jötun had called to protect itself. It hissed, baring sharp teeth as blood ran down from where thrown blade had just managed to break through the summoned shield. Viscous blue liquid dripped slowly down the jötun's ice-encased fingers onto pristine white.

It fractured the ice apart with a toss of its arm.

Volstagg brought the flat of his axe to intercept the sharp chunk of bloodied ice lobbed at them, but instead of shattering against the metal it crackled and _grew_ over it, covering the head and creeping down the hilt to bite at the hand that held it. The stout warrior dropped his weapon with a startled oath. Their attacker cackled, drawing its foot through stained snow in a quick sweeping motion, twisting and turning its sole in an incomprehensible pattern. It hummed as it kicked up a gout of blue and white powder.

And then it was gone, swallowed by blood and ice.

“ _íviðja_.”

Hogun’s voice was grim. They’d all heard horror stories of the witches of Jötunheim – how they were the vilest and most treacherous of all jötuns; how they stole children, devoured their opponents’ corpses and fueled their spells with death and suffering and sacrifice. Even their own kind feared them.

Sif and the Three each took a different direction to watch, weary and unwilling to move from their positions guarding Thor’s trapped and unconscious form.

The plains were silent but for the bellowing of the herd in the distance. Sif kept her ears open and her eyes on the ground, straining to catch the indentation of an unseen foot or the crunch of frozen kelp underneath an invisible heel.

There came again that piercing whistle, now echoing from all directions at once.

This time it was answered by fearsome growls as what looked somewhat like wolves the size of horses rushed towards them. They had been stalking ever closer, a pack of a dozen snarling monsters half-hidden behind the giant elk and kept from their attention by their attacker.

Hogun’s throwing knives proved an ineffective deterrent, sinking into thick hides with nary a gash to show for it. The wolves quickly surrounded Sif and the others, but made no move to attack. Instead, they circled around, looking for an opening to strike. Sif tried to keep track of each wolf, but the way they shifted position between themselves confused her attempts; The beasts seemed almost to meld with each other, grey and white fur and dark markings blurring together to disconcerting effect.

Too late, she realized her mistake: they had all been distracted by the seemingly bigger threat. When a smaller shape darted into their inner circle, they were ill prepared, which gave their enemy enough time to raise a veritable blizzard to blind and disorient them.

There was a cry, a thump, the sound of sharpened metal singing through air. The ice around their feet had turned perilously smooth and slick.

Sif thought she felt a presence near her, colder than cold. She struck. The frost giant gave a furious hiss, retreating. She smiled with vicious satisfaction.

“I think it best that none of you move,” came a voice, dark and amused.

The smile froze on her face.

In the scuffle, the frost giant had managed to separate Fandral from the rest. The swordsman now lay on his front a few feet from them, weighed down by a large paw on his back. The enormous striped wolf the paw belonged to had its jaws spread around Fandral’s head, teeth bare inches from his face.

“Unless, of course, you _want_ to see Fenrir bite off your friend’s head.” The voice had an odd reverberation, a deeper cadence layered underneath every word. Its owner stepped forward from between the wolves, a lithe blue figure with a long braid of black hair falling onto fur-clad shoulders.

Though Sif had caught an earlier glimpse, she still marveled at its appearance: while taller than her, she would hardly call it a _giant_. Its features as well seemed odd for a savage, the planes of its face less animalistic than she had expected.

If not for the rest of its countenance, she could have mistaken it for a person.

The sight of its full-red eyes made her shudder. Its small black pupils looked like two dark stones in twin pools of blood. There were raised scars running in smooth, curving lines across its forehead and down its limbs, with more angular patterns on its front.

Sif couldn't help but feel a stirring of pity laced with her revulsion. The jötun hardly looked older than her – how young must it have been when it was so disfigured? Shallow cuts from their scuffle further marred its arm and side, both slowly icing over with dark blood. It was barely decent, dressed in nothing more than a fur pelt and an odd green skirt, with a leather satchel hanging from one shoulder.

The skirt was longer on one end than the other, its hem rough and uneven. The pelt, smoky gray fur dabbled in black spots, looked like it might have come from one of the wolves the jötun kept. It was clasped at the neck with a braided black string from which hung what seemed like the skull of a raven framed by a pair of long, slightly curved fangs.

Sif’s bafflement at the jötun’s appearance was mirrored on the faces of Volstagg and Hogun. Fandral, meanwhile, had not the vantage to see more of his captor than his feet. Sif could see him trying to crane his neck as much as he could, only to close his eyes with a grimace as drool dripped onto his head from the wolf’s gaping maw.

“No no, none of us want that,” he babbled, blinking rapidly, eyes darting about in a vain effort to see what was happening around him, “in fact, I think I speak for all of us when I say we would all prefer our heads firmly attached to our necks, thank you. Now if you could just, ah, call off this Fenrir..?”

The jötun shook its head with a laugh. “I’m afraid I can’t,” it spoke with feigned regret. “Not until your friends surrender their weapons.”

There was a heavy pause. Sif had a feeling that like her, Hogun and Volstagg were measuring their odds of fighting their way through this impasse and, like her, finding their chances less than impressive.

They were all tired. Thor was yet unconscious, Fandral was taken, they were surrounded on all sides, and this was unfamiliar terrain that favored their enemy. Even if they could somehow pull Thor from the ice and free Fandral before he lost his head, they would still have to contend with a dozen giant wolves and a small but unarguably dangerous frost giant.

It didn't look as though they had much choice in the matter.

One by one, they tossed aside their weapons.

The jötun collected them all in a pile – except for the enchanted vambrace that held Hogun’s throwing knives, which it stowed in its satchel – arranging them to its liking before it placed its hand atop and flexed its fingers as though it was pulling on the strings of a puppet. Ice formed from its palm to partly encase all the weapons in a rough sphere.

Sif gave an incensed yell – surely the ice would damage the blades – but the jötun ignored her. “Splendid!” it exclaimed, waving a hand and making a clicking sound. Almost immediately, nine of the wolves surrounding them vanished in nine puffs of snow.

While Sif was occupied with thoughts of wringing the neck of _that deceitful sneak,_ Fandral had scrambled away from the very _real_ wolf that had held him hostage. He was scrubbing at his hair, muttering about drool and breath that smelled like rotten carcass.

The wolf in question was having the bony nubs atop its white forehead rubbed rather vigorously by its owner. “Good work, Fenrir. I’ll make sure to sneak you a treat come supper,” the jötun promised it, grinning from ear to ear as it grabbed hold of the wolf’s scruff and vaulted onto its back with easy grace.

The two other wolves were still regarding Sif and the others with hostility and suspicion. She felt uneasy about them; there was a disconcerting spark of intelligence to their yellow eyes.

“You, stay,” the jötun commanded. She was unsure whether it was talking to the wolves or to them, until it added, “Dig your clumsy friend out of the ice and wait here.” It pressed its heels to its mount’s sides, and the wolf loped off towards the herd of giant elk, leaving behind its surlier pack mates.

Sif muttered invectives under her breath as she and Volstagg straightened Thor from his undignified slouch and held him upright while Hogun and Fandral pulled his legs free. “This was _not_ what I expected from this trip,” she heard Fandral sigh after, while he was stuffing a handful of snow down Thor’s armor in an unsuccessful attempt at rousing him.

Sif had a mind to suggest a more violent approach, but it would have been unsporting to kick a man when he was unconscious.

She would have to wait until Thor woke.

Soon enough, the jötun came back on a large sled pulled by one of the elk. Sif took one look at the harnessed animal and, niggling doubt blooming into startled realization, started swearing. It earned her two curious looks, one red glare and a commiserating nod from Hogun.

“If you’re done fouling the air,” the stunted giant snipped at her as it dismounted from the sled’s runners, “then perhaps you would like to aid your companions in hauling your ugly burden onto the sleigh?” It gestured imperiously at Thor, and she and the others exchanged wary glances.

“Well?” came the impatient snap when none moved to comply. The jötun blinked, crossing scarred arms over its chest and tapping at its elbow with dark nails. “What, you want I should leave your friend there on the ice?” it asked them with a great deal of incredulity. “Mind you, I _would_ , only I've heard you Asgardians are mighty susceptible to the cold.”

At that, Volstagg shrugged and, with a great heave, hoisted Thor over one shoulder, setting the prince down as instructed before tugging him under the thick fleece in the sleigh. “What? It’s a fair point!” he exclaimed in answer to Sif’s glare.

“We know not how long Thor will remain senseless. Let the poor lad wake comfortable and warm rather than blistered from frostbite. Besides” – one hand swung to indicate their sorry state, from their lack of weapons to the wolves at their back – “I sense our choices are limited.”

There wasn’t much one could say in rebuttal to that, so she said nothing. She did, however, protest the giant-that-wasn't binding Thor to the sleigh. 

Predictably, it ignored all her objections as it looped long coils of rope around their prince. She went to intervene, but a low growl from behind halted her in her tracks.

Sif’s fingers clenched and unclenched around empty air; how she wished she still had her glaive.

“Is that really necessary?” The nervous edge to Fandral’s voice ruined his attempt at friendly inquiry. The jötun hummed, tightening the knots it had tied to the slats of its sleigh. “Why, you wouldn’t want your friend falling off, now would you?” it asked with poorly feigned concern, tilting its head and blinking its eerie red eyes at them.

Sif had never met a creature more deserving of a throttling.

A moan distracted her from her urge for violence. All eyes focused on the sleigh, where Thor was stirring beneath his bindings.

The jötun seemed fascinated. It brought its face so close it almost touched Thor’s, letting out a strange, inquisitive sounding _ki_  noise.

Blue eyes blinked open, then blinked again.

“Wha..?”

Sif watched in trepidation as the frost giant lifted one hand, finger extended. She could see Thor struggling to focus on it as it neared his face; he looked as confused as Sif felt, up until the jötun made a loud _pop_ with its lips and touched him.

“Aaargh!”

Enraged, Thor lunged with such force the sleigh he was tied to jerked. The tip of his nose was growing dark with frostbite.

“It’s true,” the little giant beside him cackled as it jumped back, “you really do catch cold at the slightest touch!” It bounced on the soles of its feet like an excited child.

“How dare you attack the son of Odin!” Thor struggled against his bonds, spitting out one invective after another, “I will slay you where you stand! I will rend you limb from limb, you coward! You feckless savage! Untie these ropes, frost filth, or feel the wrath of the mighty Thor!”

The jötun, undaunted, held a hand barely out of reach of Thor’s bite. “Ooh, what fearsome threats! Just the thought of your gnashing teeth fills me with dread,” it taunted gleefully.

Sif felt as though she were looking at two children yet out of armor. Involuntarily, her lips tugged upwards at the thought of the frost giant crowing " _I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!_ " while hovering a hand just shy of contact over a fuming prince.

“Alright, that’s enough!” Volstagg shouted when there seemed no end to the squabble, wedging himself between the two combatants. The jötun backed away with ill grace, baring its teeth and hissing its displeasure. Thor, meanwhile, finally focused himself on the matter at hand.

“Volstagg!” he shouted with relief, “Sif! Fandral! Hogun! My friends, I am glad to see you hale and whole!” He glanced around the field in bafflement and asked, “What happened? Where are all the frost giants that attacked us?”

The sudden quiet was broken by raucous, crowing laughter.

“Here they are, Asgardian,” the stunted jötun declared with a spread of its arms and a toothy grin, “all present and accounted for, the fierce war party that felled _mighty Thor_!”

Sif could see Thor’s gaze jumping between them, the frost giant, and the three unconcerned wolves sitting around them.

She and the other warriors shifted on their feet in awkward silence as they faced their prince, his eyes pleading them to say aught else.

Sif clenched her fists. Volstagg picked at the frost on his auburn beard. Fandral fiddled with his sorry scraggle of a moustache. Hogun cleared his throat. One of the wolves chewed on its paw. Another one yawned and scratched its head.

Thor, evidently deciding that the best course of action was to ignore their humiliating defeat, turned his gaze to their captor. “Whatever the reason you've attacked us, know this-"

“’Whatever the reason’?” the jötun interrupted, incredulous. “You were poaching my herd!” Blue hands gestured toward the beast harnessed to the sleigh. “I was well within my rights to stop you from killing a tamed animal.”

Another silence fell on them as all but Sif and Hogun exchanged startled glances.

The jötun blinked rapidly before making a trilling noise, long and low. “Surely, you have laws against cattle theft on Asgard?” it spoke with equal parts disbelief and contempt, “Or is it true that you people pillage from each other without recourse just as often as you pillage from everyone else?”

Thor sputtered, face flaming as red as his cloak. “Of course we have laws, but we're no poachers! We knew not that the animals were claimed!” he shouted.

This seemed only to incense the frost giant further. “Ae, I suppose you thought the breeder’s mark on the hallaporo’s necks were naught but natural coloring, is that right?” it fairly snarled at them as it pointed to the neck of its ‘hallaporo’, where there was a strange black shape quite unlike any birthmark she’d ever seen. To her eye, it resembled a simple black drawing of a threaded needle stuck to a ball of twine.

Realization dawned as clear as day on Thor's face.

The jötun let loose a harsh bark of laughter. “Asgardians,” it spat, “think you can go where you will and do what you want. Almost admirable, were it not entirely due to your baseless arrogance and appalling ignorance. I wager since no war-song’s yet been sung, you’re all here unauthorized. Not so much as a hunter’s line to show as proof for yourselves, is that so?”

“Err,” Fandral started when no one else seemed willing to speak, “a hunter’s line?”

The jötun gave another derisive little trill. “Yes, your permit to roam here in search of game,” it explained slowly, over-enunciating each word as though it thought they needed all the help they could get to understand the sentence.

Fandral looked to her. She shrugged, at a loss.

It was curious. Sif had never really given thought to what sort of society the jötuns might live in, or the laws that might govern their land. If they had decided to go on a hunting trip to say, Vanaheim, she knew they would've needed to gain permission from who so ever owned the lands they planned to traverse and conduct themselves according to the land-owner’s restrictions.

But the thought of seeking permission to hunt on Jötunheim hadn't even occurred to her. It was all just untrod wilderness, after all. The jötuns were little better than the beasts that roamed their realm - they could have no claim to the lands they inhabited.

“I thought so,” said the jötun with obvious satisfaction, “and you likely as not don’t want me taking news of your trespass to the nearest tribunal, do you?”

Thor’s eyes blew wide, no doubt at the thought of explaining all this to his parents once the King and Queen caught wind of five Asgardians put to trial on Jötunheim. He looked to Sif, whose gaze was nearly as wild with panic: if her mothers heard about any of this, she would be barred from leaving the estate for the rest of _eternity_.

"Now now, there's no need for that. I'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement," Fandral hastened to assure, holding his palms outward and trying on the appeasing smile he always gave to wroth tavern keepers after a night of drunken revelry.

It rarely worked.

The jötun’s face was slowly splitting open in a sharp sickle of a grin.

“Oh, I'm sure we will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor's first real line - as well as Thor calling himself " the mighty Thor" - is pulled from the hospital scene in the first movie, where Thor wakes up and beats up the orderlies before he takes a syringe to the butt. Damn, I'd forgotten just how big of a clod Thor was until I re-watched that. I'd imagine that Thor at sixteen would be even more boastful, but a little less hardheaded and arrogant, since he doesn't have Mjölnir to fall back on.
> 
> I'm going to be busy for a few weeks, so the third chapter likely won't be up until the end of May.


	3. An Uneasy Truce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Volstagg feels bad about things and everyone introduces themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: dehumanizing pronoun use, dead animals.

Rough stone, glistening in places with thick rivulets of ice, rose steep and dark around them. The rocky walls echoed back the barks of vargs and the scrunch of dry snow underneath large hooves as the sleigh glided between thick grey pillars of stone, carved with patterns reminiscent of the scars on the jötun’s skin. 

Volstagg looked around himself uneasily. The pillars were of varying heights, each crowned with the head of some animal and decorated with a miscellany of other corpse parts: on his left, there were the sharp-clawed remains of a monstrous bird of prey, several foot long wings still spread in flight; on his right, a pillar placed in its entirety inside the ribcage of what looked like a giant serpent; overhead, a pair of long curved tusks sprouting from a skull the size of a small cabin.

“By the All-Father,” he heard Fandral's horrified whisper as they neared a short column decked with a suspiciously person-like skeleton. Its arms, still stained with dried blood and bits of blackened flesh, were propped up to make the carcass reach forward from the narrow boulder it was shackled to, as though it was entreating them to rescue it from its gruesome fate. They could hear its bony fingers scrape against the sleigh’s side as they rode by.

“Wardstones,” the jötun answered their stricken fascination. “To scare away intruders. Wouldn’t want anything unpleasant sneaking around this close to home.”

It pointed a thumb back to the pillar with the begging skeleton, telling them with pride, “That’s one of mine. Fair bit of work getting all the bones to stick out like that without falling apart.”

“Yes, the crafting is very… impressive.” Fandral sounded faint. He was looking a little green about the face, eyes wide as a spooked horse’s. “But isn’t all this a bit… macabre?”

Beside him, Thor snorted. “Barbaric, you mean. Trust a jötun to act little better than an animal displaying its kills.”

The prince was making a point of staring defiantly at every skull he could as they passed. He kept at it until a pair of bright red irises suddenly winked into existence inside the dark recesses of one skull’s empty eye sockets.

“Gah!” Thor flinched so violently he smacked Volstagg in the face with his hard head; it was a blessing he was tied to the sleigh, else he might have managed to fall out entirely.

The jötun’s mocking laughter was fast becoming a familiar sound. “Have no fear, Asgardian. Most of the remains are inert and unable to be spurred into motion,” it said to Thor’s scowling countenance. A wave of its hand made the bright light disappear.

“So they’re just, err, decoration?” Volstagg ventured hesitantly. If he thought of them as no different from hunting trophies, perhaps the corpse columns would seem less unnerving.

The jötun scratched at the scars on its face. “No. While part of their purpose is to frighten by looks alone, they’re also a vital component in how the wards work. You kill what you want to keep away and drape its form across the stones to direct the magic.”

Well, that wasn’t the slightest bit reassuring.

 _I wonder whether there’s an empty wardstone here in need of a new corpse_? Volstagg exchanged a worried glance with Fandral. No doubt the same thought had occurred to the younger man. Thor, still sulking, seemed oblivious to the danger as they moved past one altar of death after another.

Eventually, the canyon widened into a valley of well-trampled snow, shadowed on both sides by looming mountains. The herd headed deeper into the valley while they came to a halt near the base of one mountain, where there was a shallow cavern, its rough stone walls pale with frost.

Volstagg felt disappointed. When the jötun had said it would take them to its home, he had envisioned a cozy cottage with a warm hearth, not a grotto exposed to the elements.

A senseless assumption, he supposed. Barely dressed as it was, the frost giant had seemed quite unbothered by the cold. What would it need with a blazing fire and shelter from chill winds?

The hallaporo was released from its harness and shooed away with a series of harsh barks, while a sharp whistle had the vargs come loping back from the herd they’d been guiding at their master’s command.

Astride one of the beasts, Sif was grinning – though she scowled when the frost giant looked her way – and even Hogun was cracking a smile, alive with the excitement of racing across the fields on such fearsome steeds. They dismounted with great reluctance.

Volstagg felt a bit of a pang. When it became clear the sleigh could only hold three, he'd happily left the riding to the young'uns, as his legs had been so rigid with cold he'd doubted he could mount anything higher than two steps off the ground. Now, he wished he'd at least tried.

“ _This_ is where you live?” Thor’s derision cut loudly through the silence. “This frozen hole?”

The jötun made a long _khh_ sound at the back of its throat, which Volstagg took to be a sign of profound irritation. He rather suspected the diminutive giant had lost patience with their prince early on during the trip here.

“No. But you may stay here, if it pleases you so greatly.” So saying, it grabbed the weapons it’d confiscated from them and left, disappearing _into_ the cave wall.

While Volstagg was busy gaping at solid stone, Sif took the opportunity to try and free Thor from his confinement. There was the glint of a small blade in her hand; Volstagg felt heartened to know that Sif the Resourceful had managed to stow away a knife without the sharp-eyed jötun noticing.

The paltry blade proved to be of little use, however, as the rope remained firm and unfrayed no matter how long Sif sawed at it.

“Help me with this!” she finally called to them. But even with all their efforts, they couldn’t manage to so much as loosen the bindings. The rope seemed to actively resist all their attempts: every freed coil tightened back into position, every knot they unravelled tied itself anew when they weren’t looking.

“That won’t help.”

They all sprung back from Thor, Sif hastily tugging her knife down the top of her cuirass.

The jötun was leaning against the cave wall, empty-handed and amused. There was a large crack in the stone where it stood holding aloft a pale grey hide hanging over the hidden entrance.

“Are you coming?” It didn’t wait for an answer before disappearing again.

They all exchanged glances.

By unspoken agreement, Sif and Hogun remained to guard Thor while Fandral and Volstagg hurried to the now revealed opening. They entered the dark passage with hesitance, though their pace soon quickened as they realized it wasn’t quite as freezing inside.

By the time they caught up to the jötun, they were stumbling in their haste to reach what little promise of warmth they could. 

“Amma, I come bearing guests!” The little jötun sounded chipper. It all but skipped through a doorway into a spacious cavern, sparse in all but frost and rock and dimly lit with shining wall sconces of what looked like pale, rough-edged crystal.

The other jötun – Amma? – glared at them from where it sat on a bench hewn from the cave wall. “What have you dragged in this time?” it grumbled, sheathing the knife it was using to scrape something off of stone and pushing up from its seat.

On its feet, this jötun was more akin to the frost giants Volstagg had expected of this trip: Thick set, well-muscled and some nine feet tall, it towered over them like a disgruntled bear.  _A grizzly sow_ _and her cub,_ he couldn’t help but think as the giant’s gaze swept over the little jötun, lingering over the dark gashes of frozen blood still evident from their scuffle before aiming a truly foreboding glare at Fandral and Volstagg.

Though the jötuns were strange to him, in both manner and countenance, he could well recognize a displeased mother; his Hildegund had had cause to perfect the look after the birth of their daughter.

Something thick and rancid curled in his gut at the thought they’d fought and injured a child.

”Thieves. They were poaching on our ice,” the little one explained to what had to be her mother, “there’s three more spear-shakers outside. One kept giving me the eye and cawing louder than a crow, so I left the rude braggart at the end of a long rope.”

Volstagg nearly guffawed at such a colorful description. He felt a slight twinge of guilt for thinking that both the unflattering epithet and the cold treatment were well deserved, but their prince _had_ brought it on himself.

It was ungracious, casting aspersions on someone’s hearth and home - no matter how humble it seemed.

”I see.” The bigger jötun’s eyes narrowed as the smaller one finished. She tapped her dark fingernails together, seemingly deep in contemplation as she stared at the entrance to the cavern. At last, she sighed and muttered, “You’d best go and untie the war-spawn, pup. That one’ll be nothing but trouble.”

The small giant let out a loud, long whine before complying, dragging her feet the whole way out.

At this, Amma seemed as though she wanted to smile, though her face petrified when it was turned towards them. They were looked over with a critical eye.

”A band of poachers, is it?” Under that red gaze, Volstagg felt tempted to duck his head and fidget like an errant boy.

He had a sneaking suspicion that an intrusion of misbehaving children was exactly what they seemed like to the jötun.

“I’m afraid this has all been a terrible misunderstanding,” Fandral piped up. He quailed somewhat under the unimpressed look directed at him but forged on regardless, “You see, we hadn’t realized that the, ah, hallaporo were your cattle. Fortunately for us, we were informed with all due haste” – Volstagg gave a loud snort that turned into a pained grunt as Fandral kicked him in the shin – “of our mistake before we could do any harm.”

“Is that so.” Amma did _not_ sound very convinced, but before any more could be said, they heard a furious shout from outside.

“I will _kill_ you!”

Volstagg sighed. It was sometimes wearying, being the only adult in a group of adolescents.

The little jötun came running into the chamber, waving a bright red cloak like a flag over her head. Thor chased after, stumbling and hopping; the rope he’d been secured with was tangled around his legs, writhing like a living thing in an effort to trip him. 

It would have succeeded, as well, had Hogun not stepped forward and steadied the prince to keep him from falling on his face for the second time that day.

Sif trailed after, hand over her mouth and hazel eyes lively with ill-hidden laughter.

“ _Loki_.”

The sharp tone halted the miscreant in her tracks. She turned to them all with a wide grin, offering the stolen cloak to her mother, who looked at it as though it was something fished out of a latrine. “Return that garish rag immediately, before the Asgardian keels over from the cold.”

“But mother–”

“ _Now_ , Loki.”

Loki complied with a sullen huff, handing back the cloak and, after a silent staring contest, gesturing the rope to slither free from Thor’s legs. The prince, for his part, couldn’t seem to decide whether to gloat at the little jötun or to express affront over being rescued and having his hooded cape called _garish_.

Personally – though he would never admit to it within his prince’s hearing – Volstagg thought it was not the splendid color, but the size of the thing that made it look silly. Thor had yet to fully grow into it, which sometimes had him seem even younger than he was, as though he were a child wearing a large red blanket.

Like now, for instance, with the shivering lad tugging the cloak around his shoulders and holding it closed with both hands in a futile effort to ward off the chill of this place. He presented a pitiful sight, with bedraggled hair and skin burned red by the cold.

The others fared little better; Volstagg stroked his frosted beard, wondering if he, too, was half so miserable a thing to behold.

It was an abrupt reminder that they’d been lost and trudging through a blizzard before they were waylaid by the jötun.

A look passed between the two frost giants. The little one shifted, jerked her head in their direction; the big one clicked her teeth; the little one pressed her blue lips together, widened her eyes, cocked her head; the big one let out a gusty sigh and scratched at the lines on her face.

“I guess there’s no use throwing you out, when you’ll be trouble either way,” she pronounced unhappily, “the Wanderer only knows what Asgard would do if we left you to die in the snow.”

Volstagg had to reign in his own pride to keep from protesting what was only truth: Left on their own, they would likely perish. For all they were a formidable group, they came ill-prepared. Not even the hardiest of warrior’s could vanquish cold and hunger with might alone.

Thankfully, his young and often rash friends all bit their tongues same as he.

“Now you listen and you listen carefully, Asgardians,” the jötun continued, voice the low rumble of shifting boulders. She stared them all down one by one as she talked, “You have intruded where you aren’t wanted. The only reason we won’t let the ice swallow you whole is in deference to the peace treaty set by _your_ people, _your_ king, which _you_ defy by your presence here. You are not visitors. You are not guests. You are owed no hospitality. You will pay for all that is given, by bone or by blood; if you have no wares to barter, you’ll work.”

“You have done ill: you have stepped where you are not permitted, you have tried to take what is not yours, and you have raised arms against an unmarked youth. We know you as nothing but thieves and trespassers, and you’ll be treated as such while on our ice. You’re to be under escort until you’ve atoned for yourselves. If any of you is caught perpetuating violence, stealing or out of bounds without supervision, you’ll all be thrown to sleep with the vargs until you can be handed off to the nearest tribunal.”

The words rolled over them like an avalanche, heavy and unstoppable. Spoken in the frost giant’s sonorous voice, the accusations seemed to gain a weight that crushed all opposition. Volstagg and the others could do aught else but hang their heads and accept their shame. Even Thor – greatly deflated after being reminded he was breaking the sworn oath of his own father – seemed unwilling to argue, though he was clenching his fists and grinding his jaw in agitation.

“Have I been understood?” the jötun asked, and they all voiced agreement.

“Do you find these terms acceptable?” they were further asked, and again, they agreed.

“Do you swear to do no more harm?” came a final question, and they all so swore without hesitance.

“Then come, and greet me in peace.”

The giant crouched to their level and reached out her right arm, palm down, fingers curled in a loose fist. “I am Nál, the Witch of the Yelling Mountains.” She waited, motionless, for a reply none of them knew how to give.

Behind her, the little jötun was gesturing, placing one of its arms atop the other and mouthing something at them.

Sif was the first to puzzle it out. She stepped forward, right arm held rigid in front of her, and gingerly placed her hand, palm facing up and fingers curled inward, on top of the jötun’s large blue palm.

Her look of reluctance was swiftly replaced by one of surprise; Volstagg could see her rub the back of her hand against the scarred skin beneath her’s with evident astonishment before she remembered herself.

“I am Lady Sif, the Goddess of War,” she introduced herself with solemnity before withdrawing her hand and stepping back.

Thor seemed set to introduce himself next, but Sif held him back, whispering something to him. He could just catch Thor’s louder “But I’ve _already_ called myself–” before Sif shushed him.

In Thor's stead, Hogun approached the jötun. “I am the vanr Hogun the Grim, of the Warriors Three,” he said with an inclination of his head as he made contact and then retreated.

Fandral came after. In stark contrast to the earlier’s seriousness, he named himself with joviality, “I am Fandral the Dashing, of the Warriors Three.” The accompanying wink earned him nothing but stony silence.

The swordsman shrugged at Volstagg as he went to take his turn. Thor and Sif were still in the midst of a whispered argument.

“I am Volstagg the Valiant, of the Warriors Three.” He slapped his hand atop the jötun’s with friendly exuberance.

At the touch, he understood Sif’s fascination: The skin beneath the back of his palm felt peculiar, harder than any Asgardian’s but not half so cold or rough as he expected. Like polished stone, chill and sleek, but with more give to it. He could feel a slight tingling from where his veins met with the giant’s scars.

Thor came last, a thunderous scowl on his face. He glared at Sif, glared at the crouching jötun, glared at the _other_ jötun - who glared back - and then slammed his hand down with a snarl. “I am the Mighty Thor, God of Strength,” he gritted out between bared teeth before snatching his limb back as if burned.

Ah. So Sif had convinced him to leave out his royal monikers and to go with one of his lesser titles instead.

Sound thinking. If the jötuns hadn’t yet realized who Thor was, it would behoove them not to state it outright. Who knew how they might react to the son of their worst enemy in their midst?

Nál showed no signs of recognition. She had held perfectly still throughout, barely reacting. Now, she straightened to her full height, turning her palm upward and intoning, “I accept your presence within my home.”

As far as welcomes went, it was lukewarm at best. Still, they should probably count their favors, as it could have been far colder, and involved more threats of imminent demise.

“Now I wager you’ll be wanting lodgings out of the cold, and a meal besides,” it was a grudging concession, given with all the joy of a miserly farmer at a jóltide banquet, but it lifted Volstagg’s spirits all the same; to be rid of their cold and hunger would be a grand boon, indeed. He could see the others felt the same as eyes brightened, heads perked and stances shifted to a more expectant pose.

They were bade to follow deeper into the jötuns’ lair and, lured by promises of warmth and full bellies, they went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go with chapter three. A bit earlier than promised, since I unexpectedly came by some free time last week. Chapter four should be up by the end of May/early June. Up next: Nál, not happy with the situation at large.


	4. Respite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nál is unamused and a plan is formed

They leave the Asgardians in the lower chambers, near the hot springs. Nál worries they’ll wander off and fall into boiling water, so she re-activates the sigils in the tunnels meant to turn around any would-be explorers. They haven’t been in use for a long time – not since her child learned how to circumvent them – but the workings are still sound.

Back in the main chambers, she fetches a hollowed rock crystal and holds it out to Loki, who drops in a tuft of long blond hair bundled with red string and seals the lid. “They’re so easily distracted,” she says with a shake of her head while Nál wards the container, making sure it’s locked tight. She doesn't think the ás or his company proficient in spellwork, but it’s always best to isolate a sample so that a living donor can’t tamper with it from afar.

“ _They’re so easily distracted,_ says this one,” she mutters, thoroughly unamused by the situation, “ _You_ were supposed to be out herding. _Herding_ , not collecting trash! How? How is this possible? Where did you even _find_ five Asgardians?” Her vexation isn’t truly aimed at her child so much as the world at large.

The Odin-heir and his retinue, here in Jötunheim! On her doorstep!

“I _was_ herding,” Loki insists, motioning for her to hand over the container, “I found them on the kelp fields. The whole lot of them were traipsing around the snow otter holts, heading for the hallaporo. It’s an odd thing, isn't it, coming all the way out here to fell a hallaporo? You’d think they had their own cattle to steal back on Asgard.”

Nál lets out an angry groan, relinquishing the cylinder to Loki, who rubs at the etchings on it contemplatively before tugging the thing into her satchel. “Though they claimed they didn’t know the herd was marked, which was ridiculous. Even an eyeless eel could see they were tame.” She lets out a faint _feh_ , blowing out air through her teeth.

Knowing firsthand the depths of Asgardian ignorance, Nál finds this mistake more believable than Loki does. Which means the battle-bringers caused this whole mess for the sake of a _hunting trip_. It’s a small blessing the hapless louts are still alive; she shudders to think what would have happened if Loki hadn't intervened and Odin’s get had met his end on the ice.

Somehow, Nál doesn't think the War-Father would take kindly to being informed his brat froze to death, or got eaten by direvargs. 

And so the asa-prince is her problem, now. Of all the things her unruly cub could have brought home with her… Nál clicks her teeth together, deciding to focus on smaller issues at first. She walks to the shelves to pick out a jar, before returning to Loki. “Alright, now stay still,” she commands as she goes to inspect the wounds on her child’s arm and side.

It earns her an annoyed huff. “I’m fine. They barely even scratched me.” Loki squirms and wiggles while Nál scrapes off some of the frozen blood and applies the salve. “Even so. With all that magic layered into their steel, just a nick from their blades can be dangerous.” She’s exaggerating a little, but better to be too cautious than not enough.

“Ai?” Loki cocks her head. “Such blades must be very valuable, then.” The ends of her lips are quivering with anticipation. Nál sighs, tugs the jar into Loki’s satchel and then sits down on the nearest stone ledge. “Go on then, show me your spoils.” She waves a hand and Loki scampers off.

The haul she comes back with is impressive.

Quite the collection of galdr-forged steel. She hefts a staff from the pile and discovers on inspection that it’s actually a glaive; runic script runs all around the shaft, enchantments to strengthen the pole and to make the blade retractable from what she can tell. A fine weapon. “And this is all of it?”

“Yes.” Nál feels proud: not so much as a single errant twitch. The only reason she knows her child is lying is because she knows her child. “Give it here, pup.” She stretches out a hand and beckons with her fingers. Loki holds the act for a moment longer, but they’re both aware she’s been caught. She hands her keepsake to Nál with only a token grumble.

She’s not sure what’s so fascinating about a single vambrace, at first, until she notices the writing; it’s neatly hidden, dark lines on dark leather, but she can feel the power in the characters when she passes her fingers over them. Vanr symbols, subtle and strong. Summoning and storage spells. 

Loki’s gaze is a familiar mix of imploring and resolute. It’s the same look she gave Nál that time she came back from one of her visits to the Ironwoods with a half-wild runt of a varg hugged to her chest: _I’m going to keep it. Please take this opportunity to pretend like you had a choice in the matter_.

Nál still hasn’t forgiven Angrboda for that one.

She’s not about to argue when her little carrion bird’s earned her pick of the pile. “Pah. Useless trinket. It’ll crumble at the first cold touch, and like as not can’t be activated by the likes of us. Take it, if it will keep you quiet,” she pronounces with derision and tosses the thing back with feigned belligerence.

It’s caught with nimble fingers and a happy yowl. “Thank you, Amma,” comes the self-satisfied response as the vambrace disappears into Loki’s satchel. Odds are, her witch-child will be unraveling the enchantments first chance she gets to find out how they work - she would probably be doing so right now, in fact, weren't for the _infestation_ in their basements.

They need to decide what to do with the Asgardians. Their presence here indicates one of two things: Odin-King is in direct violation of the travesty of a treaty he himself drafted, or his people hold no faith with him. Either way, it threatens war, and either way, it has brought a crown prince into their grasp.

“What have you noted so far?” she asks her child, who’s busied herself with sketching images of the Asgardian weapons and their inscriptions onto a lucent slate. “Of what, the soft-shells or their gear?” Loki asks back, and then evidently decides to explain her findings on both before Nál can answer: 

“They’re badly dressed and well-armed. Their armor is less than worthless against the cold, but their weapons are all quality metal. High grade spellwork, too: good balance, I can’t sense any discord between the different enchantments.” A black nail clicks against rune-carved leather and steel. 

“They packed light, so either they thought they wouldn't need much or they didn't plan on staying for long. Perhaps both? Everything about them suggests they came here woefully unprepared. They were already tattered when I found them. I watched them walk the fields; they kept stumbling over holes and had no idea what to do with the snow otters.”

She snorts out a laugh. Loki grins at her, and they share a silent moment of amusement over the incompetence of ill-informed travelers. The kelp fields have always been a bit of a trap for the ignorant and unwary. “The loud braggart is temperamental and proud, and _hates_ jötnar. It won’t be difficult, getting her–”

“Him.”

“–him to co-operate: Just make him think he can't or that we don’t want him to do something and he’ll do it. As for the others...” A thoughtful hum. “The scrawny one with the whiskers is scared of the vargs and likes to talk. He’s quick to open his mouth, but looks to the others before he does aught else. The big one with the wavy mane is the most affable. So far, he’s been following commands without even a token protest.”

“He’s the oldest, I think.” Here, Loki sounds unsure. She looks to Nál, who bares her empty hands. She’s no sage on the æsir and asynjur, for all that she's dealt with them in the past. What she knows is that they divide themselves according to who gets to go out and fight and who gets to stay home and fight, that they stop growing when they reach adulthood, and that they wrinkle up like distressed leather before they die.

Loki clucks her tongue and goes on, “Well, he’s biggest and seems exasperated whenever he looks at his friends. The last two watch before they act, but the one I took the vambrace from prefers to stay back while the other one likes to step forward.” Nál taps at her teeth in thought. “And as a whole?” she queries. Loki tilts her head and says, “They moved to protect the braggart when I felled him, and laid down arms when the talker got caught by Fenrir.”

So they are loyal to their prince and there’s fellow-feeling between the thieves, then.

Good. That will make handling them easier; they're less likely to go off on their own. “What we need to do,” she ponders out loud, “is make their punishment heavy enough to be believable, yet brief enough their absence won’t be felt on Asgard and light enough they feel lucky for it. We have to ingratiate ourselves with them. And yes,” she aims a stern glare at Loki, “you need to stop goading the Odinson.”

One look at her child tells her any attempt at cordiality will likely end in failure. “Why should I? What will their gratitude grant us?” Loki argues, “Everyone knows the Asgardians have no decency in trade. If we leave them in debt, they’ll just leave without paying.”

Nál raps a knuckle against her child’s hard head as soon as she's done ranting. “What have I told you of what _everyone_ knows? In matters of credible information, everyone is little better than no one at all. True, Asgardian words are empty and seldom honored, but an Asgardian _oath_ is as binding as any blood contract.”

Though she argues no further, Loki still looks skeptical. “At least poke at him _less._ Surely you can see the benefit of not making an enemy of the future king of Asgard?” Nál wheedles, which earns her a sigh and a grudging promise: “Fine. I’ll only answer every _second_ insult from him.”

It’s the best she can barter for, so she takes it. “I suppose it would be suspicious if your behavior changed too drastically.”

They catalogue the rest of the weapons in silence. Nál thinks on how best to benefit from the Odin-Spawn as she works.

So, evidently, does Loki.

“A pact,” she states after the runesteel has been put aside and some dried meat and searoots have been set to boil for the Asgardians. “A pact?” Nál prods when nothing else follows, familiar with the way Loki sometimes holds her words hostage when she craves more attention.

“A pact,” her child repeats. “Have them swear to uphold the safety of the grazing fields and anywhere else the herd roams for a set amount of time, in exchange for a pardon for their poaching and acts of war,” she explains with a satisfied grin.

So, not only would the prince be forsworn if his own people attacked, he’d be honor-bound to protect the area from other realms. And a group could be bound into a pact as a single entity so that all should suffer for the failure of one. Tempting, but… “It would grant them exception from the Treaty’s condition of non-intervention, giving them right to meddle in our affairs in the name of protecting the herd.”

Loki’s face falls slightly; she pricks her lip with her teeth in a sure sign she’s embarrassed and regretting voicing her suggestion, so Nál makes haste to clarify her remark by adding, “But that can be mitigated with a clause on Warden’s Authority.”

Loki stops chewing on her lip. She blinks her eyes and cocks her head. “Do we count as wardens? This is no wilderness sanctuary.”

Nál waves off the concern. “A witch is a warden of her territory by default so long as she takes care of the Community, and I've certainly not neglected any settlement in the area, have I?” And so what if her home is remote and hard to find? She makes her rounds regularly, and the people of the surrounding areas have their shrines; they know how to contact her should their needs be dire.

Yes, with a few additional clauses, this pact could certainly work.

“That still leaves the matter of payment for their stay here,” She muses out loud, glancing at the steaming cauldron atop the coals. She is unwilling to spare her best and unsure what their unwanted guests can eat besides, so the stew is simple and bland – and will cost the Asgardians’ twice its worth, if the budding smile Loki gives her is any indication; Nál wonders what the Asgardians have done, to earn her child’s ire.

“I think I know how they can pay for their keep,” Loki says with vicious satisfaction, her teeth bared in a hungry grin.

Nál's heart swells with pride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we've reached the halfway point of this story! Yay!
> 
> Thank you to all of the wonderful people in the comments section, it really means a lot to me to hear what you think of the story so far and I'm _more_ than happy to answer any questions you might have. Thanks also to every last lovely one of you that's subscribed, bookmarked or left kudos on this fic: You're interest is noted and greatly appreciated.
> 
> The shift in tense is probably familiar to any that have read the previous installments in the series, which have all been written from either Nál or Loki's POV. I hope the change isn't too disruptive here. This chapter's meant to function as a bit of break from the overall story: We get to see what the jötnar think of all this and I get to set up an excuse for any future story lines featuring Thor and the others in Jötunheim.
> 
> [EDIT] Next up: Fandral, coming to you in the middle of June.


	5. An Unwanted Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Volstagg makes an observation and Fandral regrets his decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: one instance of dehumanizing pronoun use, a minor getting fetishized and non-graphically sexualized by an older minor, a character espousing binarist and gender essentialist views, dead animals

“This is _disgusting_.”

Fandral couldn’t help but scrunch his face as he lifted another shovel-full of manure onto the cart. The smell was revolting, even worse than horse droppings, and the damp steam wafting from fresh piles of feces made him feel as though he was bathing in the unpleasant odor.

Beside him, Hogun grunted agreement as he took hold of the handle of the cart and began dragging the load to be emptied, while Thor brought in a new cart to be filled. “And humiliating. We’re warriors, not stablehands,” the prince grumbled as he grabbed a shovel and got to work on the heap.

The absurdity of the son of Odin shoveling dung had worn down somewhat, but Thor’s disgruntlement still had Fandral hiding a smile behind his shoulder. Really, if he didn’t have to share in this fate, he’d think the whole thing amusing. The others had mocked him often enough for having to work his mother’s stables back home.

Fandral had thought himself well-rid of days spent pushing around crap when he got selected into Prince Thor’s entourage. He supposed this proved he would never make it as a soothsayer, more’s the pity.

If he’d seen the outcome of this trip– well, he probably would have agreed to it all the same. He’d been rather deep in his cups, after all.

Let this be a lesson, then: _Never listen to Thor while drunk_.

“If the jötun looks at me one more time with that smile on its face, I’ll–” Thor struck empty air with his shovel, sending bits of fecal matter flying through the air. “Ack!” Fandral yelped, jumping back to avoid getting splattered with excrement just to step on a pile behind him.

Correction: _Never listen to Thor_.

“Better rein in that temper, lad,” Volstagg’s advice was muffled by his beard, which he had tied around the lower half of his face as a hairy filter. It was hard not to envy the man, when his own humble start of a mustache was no help at all in keeping the stench at bay.

Thor _harrumph_ ed, snorting air out of his nostrils as noisily as an angry bull.

“Really now,” Volstagg tried in a more placating tone, “You wouldn’t want to anger her. Who knows what she would have us do next!” Thor looked incredulous and Fandral stopped in his shoveling to stare, but it was Sif – halted before she could haul her cart forward – who asked, “ _She_?”

“Well, yes,” Volstagg mumbled, tugging at the strands of his beard, “she’s wearing a skirt, isn’t she?”

Fandral couldn’t help but look back at the jötun sitting idly by some distance from the enclosure. Now that it was mentioned, he could see a… a _feminine allure_ to the frost giant: The way she was picking apart the carcass of some big, rat-like thing she had caught earlier with her bare hands had a certain pragmatic precision to it befitting a woman.

He recalled that the jötun also preferred to wear her hair in a fish-tail braid, rather than a more masculine three-part. 

Yes, yes, it was obvious now! The skirt, the braid, the fierceness with which she defended her home– How could he have missed it? The longer he looked, the more he could see a wild, sharp sort of beauty there.

The dark hair, the red eyes, the delicate scars that marked otherwise smooth, cerulean skin… features he’d first thought of as savage and strange now seemed temptingly _exotic_.

“The jötnar are not of Asgard,” Hogun remarked. He had returned with the first cart sometime during the conversation. “Their dress and mannerisms might not signify what you think.” The vanr cast a meaningful glance down at himself before raising his brows at the rest of them.

Fandral could well understand his point, but– “The smaller one _did_ call the larger one her mother, and they _do_ dress alike.”

Sif hummed while fingering the leather flaps of her own skirt, worn in defiance to Asgard’s customs. Like Fandral, she was looking back with new-found interest - though he dearly hoped it was a _different_ kind of interest from his.

He could do without the competition.

“If by that you mean they both cover their hips in rags,” Thor had at least learned to keep his voice down while insulting the frost giants, “then ye–”

The snowball hit him square on the mouth.

“At least we don’t clank like cattle bells in _our_ clothing!” came the yell over Thor’s spitting and spluttering.

Volstagg let out a particular kind of weary sigh he’d adopted some years prior – he seemed to think himself a veteran of many wars now he had a wife and child waiting at home. It made Fandral wish the older man had been the one hit in the head, with something far smellier than snow.

“You’re not worki-iing,” Loki sing-songed at them, letting her voice rise to a high keen on the last syllable. Idly, Fandral wondered how she managed to make her voice carry so well from such a distance. “Honestly, I never expected you all to be this lazy. _You’re_ the ones who agreed to pay for your meals with menial labor.”

“Because the only other options you presented us was to barter away either our clothes or our _teeth_!” Thor yelled back, earning himself a haughty flick of the wrist for his outburst. The prince grumbled loudly about unreasonable cut-throats that wouldn’t accept Asgardian currency as they all set back to shoveling.

It took them all morning – he thought; it was hard to tell time when the sun wouldn’t set – to clear the hallaporo enclosure. It left their boots caked in filth and their clothing reeking of the same, and yet the jötun allowed them no more than a thorough scrub in a pile of snow before she herded them on to the next task: hauling the skinned and bloody carcass of some unfortunate animal to the vargs.

Fandral shuddered as he watched an _actual_ pack of a dozen crack bones and rend half-frozen flesh with truly formidable jaws.

He could swear the biggest one – the one that had held him in its maw – was _mocking him,_ its four blue eyes locked with his and gleaming with malicious amusement as it devoured its meal.

“I see you recognize Fenrir,” came a laughing voice from behind him, making him jump nearly half a foot in the air. The jötun had snuck upon him as quiet as a grinning blue shadow.

“Yes well, Fenrir’s quite distinctive,” Fandral answered, heart still lodged in his throat.

It would have been impossible to mistake the beast that had assaulted him. For one thing, it was half-again as tall as any of the others. For another, where the other vargs were smoky grey and spotted with uneven black rings, Fenrir’s coat was pure white on all but its dappled grey back, and its fur was striped as well as spotted.

The longer he stared at it, the more convinced he was the varg was staring back. “Say,” he started with a nervous laugh, “you don’t suppose _it_ recognizes _me_?”

It was silly: The varg was no more than a mindless beast. He had no reason to think–

“Well, certainly,” the jötun answered, making _tsk-tsk-tsk_ noises while waving what looked like a liver in one bloodied hand, “Fenrir never forgets a face.” The varg came bounding at them, long tail raised and making high-pitched chirruping sounds.

It was disturbing. Something with teeth as long as a man’s fingers shouldn’t be allowed to sound like an eager kitten.

The jötun commanded the varg to sit before she pointed to Fandral and began chanting, “Who caught the intruder? Was it you? Was it Fenrir? Did you do as you were told? Did you catch the poacher and keep from eating him?”

Fenrir growled and swished its tail back and forth, tongue lolling out from behind a satisfied vulpine grin. It gave a series of _yip_ s in answer every time Loki asked it a question. “Were you promised a reward?” The liver was waved right in front of the varg’s snout, but instead of biting off Loki’s hand, it made a demanding bark.

“I didn’t hear you. Speak louder!”

A harsher bark.

“I said speak louder! Do you deserve a reward?”

An ear-splitting roar.

“Hmm.” The jötun tapped her chin with one sharp black nail. “A compelling argument,” she finally said and tossed the liver to Fenrir, who snatched it from the air with a mighty chomp. Loki let the thing lick the blood from her fingers and scratched it behind its horns before she moved on to check on its pack mates.

Fandral went to follow, but Fenrir blocked his path. He tried to go around it, and the varg moved to corral him back.

He huffed. “Well, aren’t you being adorable?”

Eyes the blue of lapis lazuli stared at him, unblinking. He wondered if the oversized cur was craving attention.

“There now, good–”

He managed to pull his hand back just before Fenrir’s jaws snapped shut around it.

Alright. Bad dog. No petting.

Fandral was more than relieved when Loki came to fetch him, even if it did earn him a round of mocking laughter. 

“Err,” he coughed out when they were finally clear of the vargs, “you said Fenrir never forgets a face. How much, exactly, does he know and understand?” Loki made a _ke_ noise. The way she tilted her head and blinked her red eyes at him made her look like an inquisitive bird. “Ah, about all of…” He waved his arms around himself in elaboration.

“Ai, do you mean can the vargs understand us?”

He nodded.

Loki clucked her tongue. “Sort of. They aren’t exactly built to talk like we do, so no one’s really sure how much they listen to words and how much to tone and gesture. The tamvargs are usually bred towards better communication with people, so they have a wider range of voices and seem to understand other species more than vildvargs do.”

So there were more of those beasts out in the wild? Once they were back on Asgard, Fandral was never stepping foot on Jötunheim _again_.

“Amma’s vargs are especially good at understanding complicated orders, since they’re meant for herding. Fenrir’s a cross-breed, though, between a tracker and a half-direvarg herder, so…” She bared her palms. He took it for a shrug.

She went on in a tone brimming with pride, “But Fenrir still understands plenty. D’you know how hard it is to train a plain hunting tamvarg to bring its prey in alive? Yetat the fields,  _my_ varg didn’t even _try_ to bite your head off!”

Fandral shivered. “Yes, that’s quite the achievement,” he agreed weakly, rubbing at his own neck.

Some ways off, his friends were giving him strange looks, likely because he’d been trailing so avidly after the jötun rather than returning to them. When Loki wasn’t looking, he waggled his eyebrows at the group and pointed with his chin at his scantily-glad companion.

Their hunting trip might have been a failure, but Fandral thought he might not have to leave here without any tales of conquest to tell. It would be quite the accomplishment, after all, melting the heart of a frost giant.

Sif grimaced and rolled her eyes, while Thor mimed gagging and Hogun shook his head. Volstagg, for some odd reason, was out and out glaring at him.

Too late, he realized he shouldn’t have hinted at his intentions, as the stout lout marched forward and situated himself squarely between Fandral and Loki.

“So,” Volstagg the Meddlesome boomed, “what would you have us do now? I confess, if our efforts are meant as recompense for what we eat, then I’m well willing to work myself to the bone for a full meal.” The proclamation was followed by a good-humored chuckle and a resounding slap to his own rotund belly.

If Fandral didn’t know the man he’d never have guessed he was displeased.

For her part, the jötun didn’t seem to notice aught amiss. She looked at Volstagg askance, of course, but it was her habitual _ugh, Asgardians_ look she’d directed several times at all of them during the course of the day. “Did your last meal not suffice?” she asked in a tone sure to ward off complaints.

“No no, it was certainly delicious!” Volstagg rushed to assure, “the stew was quite hardy, thank you. But I couldn’t help but feel that the portions were a tad… small.”

It was a vast understatement. Volstagg had spent the whole of last night complaining of how he’d expected giants to have bigger servings.

“What, were you expecting a feast?” The glance Loki gave them was sly and knowing. “Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for whatever us two lowly herders deign to serve you.”

‘Two lowly herders’? Loki and her mother acted as though they owned the entire mountain range!

The diminutive giant gave a sharp whistle to draw everyone’s attention. “We’re going up the mountain,” she stated, right before baring her teeth at Volstagg and saying, “if it’s more food you want, then your next task should please you: You are to catch your own meal.”

Which was how they found themselves, after a long and harrowing climb, staring up at a stone wall where long-tailed, duck-like birds flitted about and poked their blue-crested heads out of their nests.

The cliff they were so despondently contemplating was pockmarked with hundreds of holes, stained white around their rims with droppings. The jötun hadn’t permitted them any weapons, so their options were to either throw rocks at the birds nesting far above them in hopes they could hit some hard enough to bring down, or–

“Should we climb it?” Thor asked, head craned back to take in the cliff in its entirety.

“As if you could,” Loki taunted from her perch atop a flat boulder, where she sat brushing and braiding her hair. Fandral watched with dread as his friend’s face took on a familiar mulish cast.

“Thor, no…” But it was too late. The prince was already measuring the distance between himself and the lowest holes, looking for foot holds in stone.

Beside Fandral, Volstagg gave a gusty sigh and went to stand near the cliff, ready to catch the prince when he fell.

It was his chance: All throughout their hike up the mountain path, Volstagg had thwarted his every attempt at flirtation with their captivating keeper. But now, while the older warrior was busy making sure Thor wouldn’t break his neck, Fandral was free to pursue his quarry.

“Why hello there.” He approached Loki with his most rakish grin. “The seat beside you looks rather empty.”

The jötun barely spared him a glance, too intent on watching Thor curse and crawl his way up a stone wall covered in bird stool.

Fandral dusted the snow from a spot on the boulder and gingerly sat down on cold stone.

“I’m not sure if you heard, but my friends and I were having an interesting discussion earlier about jötun customs.” Red eyes flicked his way and then back to the cliff. Deciding to take the brief look as encouragement, he inched his way closer until he was sitting near enough that they were almost touching. 

The jötun tensed, but otherwise did nothing, so next he tried throwing a companionable arm around fur-clad shoulders.

It took less than four heart beats for his sleeve to crumble into nothing where it touched the jötun’s bare neck. He pulled his arm back with an uneasy chuckle before the same could happen to his flesh. “We’d just noticed–”

“I don’t see what the clothes I’m wearing have to do with what I’m called,” Loki interrupted, gaze still focused elsewhere.

He blinked, thrown. “Well, it’s because women wear skirts, you see–”

“So?” Again he was interrupted. But at least this time, he was graced with a look of mild curiosity. “So?” He repeated back, flummoxed. “Ah, I… suppose women here dress differently? But then, your mother–”

“She’s not a woman, she’s a witch.” The way Loki said _she_ and _witch_ was… odd. At times, the jötun had a tendency to shift between different languages as she talked, and the terms she used now were markedly foreign. It caused a faint disruption in his All-Speak, as though the magic had only grudgingly settled on a translation.

“I don’t understand,” Fandral confessed. “Isn’t a witch just a woman who uses wild, untamed magic?”

Loki stared at him as though he’d just spat on her. “No,” she sounded incensed, “a witch is someone who embodies magic. It has nothing at all to do with being a _rank novice_.”

Oh. Oh dear, had he just insulted her mother?

“O-of course! Please, forgive me,” he rushed to apologize, “I meant no disrespect.”

The jötun let out a harsh, disbelieving _kh_ and turned back to watch the cliff. Discouraged by his swift and abject failure, Fandral did the same.

He was just in time to see Thor get bitten by a duck and lose his grip. The prince plummeted down onto Volstagg, and they both fell to the ground in a flailing heap of limbs. Sif and Hogun rushed to help the two disentangle.

Fandral felt only a twinge of guilt for deciding to stay in place to try and salvage the conversation he’d started. “So… Your mother’s not a woman, yet you call her your mother?” He was glared at, so he raised his hands and widened his eyes in an attempt to look as endearingly disarming as possible.

It seemed to work – instead of killing him, Loki cocked her head and asked, “Yes? What does being a mother have to do with being a woman?”

Fandral gaped. It took him a while to recover his tongue. “What does it–? You can’t be a mother and _not_ be a woman!”

“Why not?” She sounded honestly confused.

At this point, he wasn’t sure which of them was more lost. “Why not? Because… Because that’s just what the word _means_ : A woman with a child is a mother, while a man with a child is a father. Men and women can both be _parents_ , but they can’t both be _mothers_.”

“And there are only those two options?” Loki sounded like she thought the whole thing ridiculous. When he nodded, she huffed and stated, “But my amma is no more a man than she is a woman, whether I call her mother or father.”

Fandral shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that,” he insisted, “you can’t just decide you’re neither, you have to be one or the other.”

Loki made another contemptuous _kh_. “Who says?”

“Everyone!” He flailed his arms about wildly. From the corner of his eye, he could see his friends pause to gawk at him. Embarrassed, he coughed, tugged his hands into his arm pits and continued in a more moderate tone, “Everyone says so.”

Loki looked unimpressed. “When it comes to credible information, everyone’s as good as no one at all,” she recited with a mockingly lilting cadence.

Fandral blew out a frustrated breath. “Look, it’s like this: women are naturally good at things like finances, and defending the home, and giving birth–”

“So if you can bear children, you’re a woman, and if you can’t, you’re a man?”

Again with the interrupting!

“Well, no,” he responded, tugging on the hairs on his lip in agitation, “not all women can bear children, and there are some men who can – though of course they shouldn’t do it, as bearing children is for women…”

If Loki cocked her head any further to the side, it would roll right off her shoulders.

Fandral waved a hand, trying to find his way back to the path he started from. “What I’m _trying_ to _say_ is that everyone has a role to play in life, and everyone should act according to their role. And what role you have is determined by what comes naturally to you. So if you, say, like weaving and running a household, you’re a woman. And if you like traveling and going to battle as a warrior does, you’re a man.”

The jötun mulled this over. Her gaze roamed all around her, briefly stuttering over something behind him before focusing back on Fandral, sizing him up.

“I see,” she said, and then immediately ruined it by asking him: “And which one are you?”

Fandral spluttered. “A man, obviously!”

Loki let out a thoughtful hum. “Yes, you said you were one of three warriors… Are all your friends warriors, too?”

“Yes!”

“So they’re all men?”

Fandral realized he’d built for himself a trap.

“Um, no. No, Sif is a woman,” he mumbled.

The jötun looked smug. “But isn’t that impossible? You _just said_ –”

“I know, but she- she’s an exception. Sif doesn’t count!”

“I don’t count as what?”

Fandral startled so badly he fell off the boulder he was sitting on.

The others had gathered near while they’d been talking. Apparently, the bird catching had gone poorly: They had between them one measly duck, hanging dead by its neck from Hogun’s belt.

Thor was grumbling and rubbing bird droppings from his white-dusted hands, Hogun and Volstagg were looking down at Fandral with disapproval, and Sif…

He gulped, eying the thick-soled boots which were resting _far_ too close to certain parts of him for comfort. Before he could come up with a convincing lie to save himself from a swift and undoubtedly painful kicking, the jötun answered, “As a warrior.”

In the face of Sif’s foreboding glare, she merely blinked owlishly and added, “Or as a woman? It was all fairly muddled and hard to understand. I’m afraid this talk of women and men makes precious little sense to me.” Though she sounded like she was oblivious to Sif’s ire, the way Loki flashed her teeth at Fandral when he gazed up at her said _I know you’re in trouble and I made it worse on purpose_.

For that one fleeting moment, the jötun looked as viciously pleased as a wolf standing over her kill.

There was nothing pleased about Sif. Her back was stiff and her shoulders rigid as she glared down at him, jaw clenched so tightly it looked painful. “You shouldn’t listen to a word he says. Fandral doesn’t know _anything_ ,” she spat out through gritted teeth.

The anger in her voice made him scramble back to his feet as fast as he could, but it was the hurt beneath it that had him reach out and utter an apologetic, “Sif, I was just trying to explain– I didn’t mean–”

She slapped his outstretched hand away hard enough he was surprised none of his fingers broke. “I know perfectly well what you _meant_.” He backed away, shame-faced and hunched low like a beaten cur. Thor, Hogun and Volstagg were sharing discomfited glances.

On her rock, Loki was chewing on her lower lip while looking between him and Sif with wide-eyed surprise, as though this wasn’t _exactly_ the reaction she’d meant to provoke.

The silence was tense, Sif all but trembling from rage and the rest of them unsure what to do. Finally, the jötun gave a haughty sniff. “Well, _obviously_ he doesn’t know anything,” she proclaimed, as regal as a queen on her throne, “since you’re _clearly_ a woman, and just as clearly a better warrior than he is.  _You_ managed to wound me when we fought, while _he_ got taken captive.”

Loki jumped off from her boulder. She eyed Hogun’s lone bird with distaste before motioning for Sif to follow. “That’s hardly enough to feed _one_ of you. Come, I’ll show you how it’s done.” And then, chin tilting down and one corner of her mouth lifting slightly higher than the other, the jötun _smiled_ – an impish little grin astonishingly devoid of mockery or ill-intent.

Watching Sif respond with a bemused smile of her own while she was led back to the cliff, the prevailing thought on Fandral’s mind was _how did this happen?_ He’d set out to charm the petite giant, and now the jötun was trying to charm _Sif_.

He would definitely never flourish as a Seer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been making more progress on the chapters than I expected so... here's Fandral being a gross, clueless ass. Next chapter should be up somewhere around either the first or second week of June, depending on when I get finished with the final chapter.


	6. An Unfamiliar Tale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hogun asks a question and Loki tells a story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: vague descriptions of flesh-eating shrimp, mentions of animal testing and animal death

The jötun’s help consisted of enchanting rocks for Sif to throw, so that the projectiles hit their targets with far greater force than either Sif or Hogun had previously been able to muster on their own. Soon enough, they had eight full-sized birds to strip of their feathers.

Loki was perfectly content to eat her own catch raw, but she’d had the foresight to bring with her some coal – “Since you people are as helpless in the snow as eels out in dry air” – which she doused in what smelled like strong spirits and lit aflame with a snap of her fingers.

His friends were content to warm themselves by the fire while the birds cooked, but Hogun felt a need to explore. Once his limbs had thawed, he rose from his spot beside Sif with an apologetic nod – he’d seated himself between her and Fandral – and set about surveying his surroundings.

It was well worth moving away from the heat.

The view from a nearby ledge was breathtaking: The mountainside rose and rose into a long line of grey giants keeping watch over an endless desert of snow, in the far distance, a glittering expanse of water shrouded faintly by a shimmering white mist that all but glowed under the lone eye of the ever-present sun. The sky was a bright cloudless blue, with one moon high on the horizon - as it had been throughout their stay - and another, larger one just starting to peek over it.

The way the world stretched out below him, so vast and quiet, reminded him of nothing so much as the plains of Vanaheim. It made him realize how much he truly missed his home; not just the people and places he'd left behind, but the sheer size of it. Asgard, grand as it was with its constructed fields of green and copper and gold, could never hope to achieve such a sprawling vista of open space.

“That’s the Sisämeri.” The jötun had noticed his preoccupation with the view. She stood beside him, pointing towards the distant sea. If he concentrated, he could just make out the original, unfamiliar sound the magic of the All-Speak insisted on converting to _the_ _inner sea._

He spoke no jötun tongues, but if Loki thought it important to speak in her own language, the least he could do was listen.

“Or the Round Sea, or the Ringpool, or the Låstsjö – it has many names.” All said with a possessive sort of familiarity as disconcertingly red eyes locked with his own. He answered the stare with a solemn nod, wondering if Loki had somehow noticed he was making an effort to hear the distinctions.

A blue hand gestured around them. “This, where we’re standing – see the five pillars?” Hogun made an affirmative hum, and the small giant elaborated, “They look sort of like fingers jutting out of the rock, so we call this ledge Bergelmir’s Palm.”

“Why Bergelmir’s?” He asked. He’d never heard the name before. After making a contemplative series of clicks at the back of her throat, the jötun explained, “Because of the mountain. See, the caves Amma and I live in used to be a bloodforge connected to an old mine–”

Hogun’s brows rose in alarm. “A bloodforge sounds… highly unpleasant.”

Loki blinked at him. “Really? It’s just a place where mages use blood rites to study animals. They watch how they behave, and take samples to see how their bodies are made, and try to find ways of making the animals stronger and healthier.”

“Ah.” Never before had he heard of blood magic used in such a benign way, as essentially a healer’s tool meant to aid in the examination and treatment of living creatures. Loki cocked her head at him and inquired, “I suppose if you didn’t know that, then you won’t understand why they called this mountain Bergelmir’s Keep?”

Hogun admitted as much, and was met with an excited, high-pitched trill.

He was ushered back to where the others sat with all due haste - which was just as well, as Volstagg had finished cooking their catch. Thor was already on his way to stripping what looked like his second bird to the bone, leaving the four of them to share the six remaining.

Fandral, now sitting next to Thor, hunched low and picked at what he liked to pretend counted as a mustache as they passed him. Loki barely spared him a glance as she took a seat between Volstagg and Sif and motioned for all of them to gather closer.

“I was just reminded of the deplorable state of education on Asgard,” she said, grinning like a shark. Thor couldn’t seem to decide who to glare at, Hogun or Loki. Hogun answered the sullen look with a shrug and a shake of his head as he sat down on Fandral’s other side, muttering, “Not _intentionally_.”

“So,” the jötun clapped her hands together, “I think it high tide I rectified some of that ignorance with a story of one of the greatest disasters ever to befall Jötunheim.” She gave an exaggerated cough. When she spoke once more, her voice had dropped low and the eerie, echoing murmur lurking behind her every word had grown more pronounced.

“Once, our world was as much land as ocean. In those tides, we jötnar were different.” Loki paused, locking eyes with each of them in turn before she continued, “we were warm and soft-skinned, like the álfar, like the vanir… like the asynjur.”

There was an astonished silence. Hogun exchanged glances with the others, and they all listened more intently as the story continued, “Our lands were at first rich. We had forests, deep and old and dark; we had plains, vast and open and endless; we had fields, full and vibrant and fertile.” The jötun’s open hand swept a wide arc in front of her.

When she went on, her words turned mournful, “But as we built and spread and consumed, the forests gave way to cities, the plains to winding roads, the fields to barren earth. We took and we took and we took, until our waters were clouded with filth and our sky blotted out by smoke and the warmth of our world turned to a cleansing fire.”

Thor looked like he was about to open his mouth to utter something uncouth. Sif stomped on his toes.

Heedless of the averted interruption, Loki continued, “Then came the Melt.” In a lighter tone, as though speaking to a group of children, she explained, “You see, our world is round and crowned in snow and so on both sides of our realm there exist caps of ice.”

Between her hands formed a clear sphere of ice with two white spots where her palms rested. She held the ball up for their perusal.

“Before the Melt, these caps held captive whole oceans. More water than has ever fallen off of Asgard’s rim, more than every lake and sea and river on Vanaheim combined...” She paused to smile at her listeners. “More even than you’ll find in dökkálfar ale.”

Hogun smiled and the others laughed, taken by surprise at the glimmer of humor in what had begun to sound like a bleak tale. The jötun waited for the laughter to die down before continuing, her sly smile slowly fading into a look of solemnity as she intoned, “So when the lands grew warm and the air heated, the icecaps began to melt.” As she spoke, she pressed at the globe between her hands until it shattered, flakes raining down into a pile at her feet.

She swept her arms above the shards of her ruined world and spoke lower and louder, the deep rumble of her voice imitating the sound of a turbulent sea, “Great, crushing, _gushing_ waves roiled over all of Jötunheim, subsuming the lands, tearing through the cities and drowning all the people.”

“All, that is,” her voice had quieted into a soft murmur, “except for a single group of jötnar.”

Their storyteller leaned forward, as though about to impart a valuable secret, and they all leaned toward her in kind. “Bergelmir,” the name tripped from her tongue like a revelation, “the Mountain Yeller, had seen the danger and sought to warn others before it was too late.”

“Alas, few listened.” At this, Loki gave a sad shake of her head, and Hogun nearly snorted out loud at the exaggeratedly mournful tone.

“What of those that did?” The hushed question came from Thor. For the first time, he was looking at the jötun with no hostility, wide-eyed and rapt. It took Hogun by surprise, though perhaps it shouldn't have; the prince had always been partial to tales of great heroes cheating fate and wresting victory from the jaws of defeat.

Loki, as well, seemed surprised by Thor’s interest. She blinked once, twice, and then preened, firming her shoulders and tossing her braid before letting her red gaze roam about her captive audience as she answered, “Those who listened sought to save what they could.”

“They banded together to build a fortress.” Her hands lowered to form a hollow, translucent hill on the ground. They watched the small mound grow taller and more defined, the jötun’s touch turning snow and ice into steep sides and a flat, craggy top.

“They carved their refuge into the base of an old mountain, trusting the bones of the earth to hold strong against raging currents” – Hogun could actually see an intricate web of tunnels inside Loki’s sculpture – “and set their magic to shield what stone could not.” Blue fingers left trails of light in their wake, forming a glowing pattern of green and violet and gold around and inside the sculpture.

“The tides came. Foaming waves crashed against the side of the mountain, burying it to its tallest peak in water. The fortress held, but the jötnar were now stranded. They had vessels to traverse the Ocean” – The delicate sculpture she made between her fingers looked not unlike an armored serpent. It splintered apart in her tightening grip – “but none could stand the pressure of the deep for long enough to breach the surface.”

“Bergelmir and the others were trapped.” Her proclamation sounded grim and final.

There was a long pause. As the silence stretched and stretched, Hogun looked around himself. He wondered if that could really be the end to the tale, and saw the same question reflected back from his friends. Thor was the first to lose patience. “What happened next?” he demanded to know, “How did they get out? They must have escaped!” 

It was apparently just the question Loki had been waiting for. “You’re right, of course. I’d scarce be telling you this tale if the Mountain Yeller remained at the bottom of the Ocean.” She cleared her throat before yet again lowering her voice and resuming her role as storyteller.

“Though the jötnar were trapped, all was not lost.” Thor looked satisfied by this - unaware, or perhaps uncaring, that he was cheering on the frost giants. “You see, Bergelmir was knowledgeable in magic, as were several others of the group. Together, they studied the Ocean and the animals of the Deep, determined to find a solution to their pressing problem.”

Fandral snorted. Hogun nudged him to stay silent.

“They would go out in their vessels to hunt the beasts that had made the Deep their home, from the smallest of crabs to the largest leviathans, to bring back a tooth, a tentacle, a drop of blood. Trial after trial they tried, sample after sample they combined, beast after beast they created – yet though they found many ways to improve themselves, none of it sufficed to free them of their self-made prison.”

“Until one tide, they found strange tracks in the sand of the seabed.” Loki trailed her toes through the snow in front of her. “A paired line of several deep and narrow indentations, as though created by some massive creature balanced on many thin legs.”

“The tracks led to a deep crevice, and in the crevice nested a monster unlike any they’d seen before.” The jötun jumped to her feet, her arms reaching up while her voice grew louder and louder, “An armored behemoth as large as a longboat, with tens and tens of eyes and twice and twice again as many limbs as any jötnar!”

“Its legs were long and thin as stilts and its front claws were sharp as spears” – She rose to her toes and ice formed daggers around Loki’s fingers as she folded her arms, elbows bent and hands pointing down – “and when the jötnar dared approach, it struck at them like lightning. There came a great and terrible boom. Its limbs moved so fast they could barely be seen, and the water heated where it hit.”

She punched out and, quick as the monster she was describing, snatched a bone from the half-eaten bird in Volstagg’s hands. “It shattered one of the jötun vessels, and it grabbed the people inside and started eating them.” 

The bone crunched between the jötun’s sharp teeth as, with relish, she mimed the monster feasting on her people, exaggerating her chewing and smacking her lips loudly. Hogun, Sif and Thor encouraged her, competing to see which of them could make the most comical expressions of disgust in response, while Fandral _hemm_ ed and _haw_ ed and pretended to judge their performances with the utmost seriousness and Volstagg sighed and failed to hide his smile in his beard.

When Loki finally sat down, she was struggling to stop laughing. Breathless, she tried to keep telling the tale, “The fight–” Hogun gave a conspicuous cough. It made Thor grin, which made Sif snicker, which had Loki bursting out in another fit of laughter. It took some time before they all managed to collect themselves enough for Loki to continue.

“Faced with such might, the fight seemed hopeless. But Bergelmir saw their chance: While the beast was occupied with its feast, the jötnar steered their ships underneath its long legs. There, it couldn’t strike at them with its fearsome claws, and there Bergelmir noticed that its hard carapace was weakest where limb met body.”

“So the jötnar aimed their weapons at the joints in the beast’s underbelly, and their harpoons pierced through its tough shell, and so the monster was slain. In its last moments, it lurched forward on long legs as blood dripped clear and viscous through the rents in its carapace, and its once powerful claws flailed weakly in the water. Bergelmir’s company took what they needed and their ships glided, swift and victorious, out from underneath their quarry just as it collapsed. With the blood of their defeated foe, their search had finally come to an end.”

“And so each remaining jötun was presented with a choice.” She held out her arms, hands flat and palms facing upwards in offering. “To remain as they were” – the right hand rose and the left lowered, and then the left hand rose and the right lowered – “or to embrace change.”

Loki turned her palms down but kept her arms extended. “Led by Bergelmir, the jötnar that stepped out of the Deep were unlike any seen before: their skin hardened, their bodies marked by currents, their blood as blue as the waters they rose from.” One of her finger’s traced its way down the markings on her left arm.

With head craned back and arms splayed wide, she addressed her next words to the sky in a voice pitched to carry over the mountains, “They had taken the Ocean into themselves, and in their veins flowed the future of Jötunheim.” There was something of laughter hiding behind the grand pronouncement. Hogun couldn't see much cause for it, but for once, he didn't feel as though he was in the wrong for not understanding; none of his friends gave any indication that they understood the humor of the line any better than he.

For her part, Loki seemed unbothered by their lack of reaction. Her gaze descended back to them slowly, with all the unhurried calm of a falling feather. She beckoned them closer before leaning forward and telling them, hushed and conspiratorial, “Of course, _some_ say not all the jötnar decided to return.  _Some_ say in the deepest reaches of the Ocean, kept standing by the last of the leirjötnar and guarded by Bergelmir’s failed experiments, the Fortress still stands.”

Thor perked up like a hound on the trail, scenting adventure. “Is it true?” he asked with such interest that Hogun exchanged wary looks with everyone else. Volstagg winced; one of his hands rose to twist at his beard.

Loki looked around at all of them. She gave a slow blink before going _ak_ and baring her palms. “Who knows?” she said with a cock of her head, “there are as many stories of the Melt as there are tellers. In some, the Fortress doesn’t exist at all. They build a boat instead, with no oars and no sails, and drift along the currents so long that they become one with the Ocean.”

There was a collective sigh of relief.

The jötun laughed at the way Thor deflated. “Yes, I like mine better as well.” Her smile was sharp but sincere. “All we really know for sure is that somewhere in our history, there was a great flood caused by a sudden rise in temperature, and that one of the few survivors _might_ have been a jötun named Bergelmir who _might_ have helped facilitate a rapid change in the jötnar, probably through magic.”

“How is it you don’t know more?” Hogun asked. Loki gave a faint hum. “It was a long, _long_ time ago, and not many records from before the Melt survived. What we have is what little Bergelmir and the others managed to preserve, most of it worn away by time and memory.”

“Who cares about before!” exclaimed Thor. “What happened _after_ they came out of the ocean?”

“Aa,” Loki stretched out the sound into a long creak. “You want _another_ tale?” Hogun nodded along with the others while Thor yelled, “Yes, another! Tell us of what became of Bergelmir.” The jötun grinned and opened her mouth, and Thor leaned forward eagerly.

“No.”

The prince fell back. “What? Why not?” He sounded incensed. Hogun frowned at Loki. She _tsk_ ed at them and said, “Because fish don’t swim in dry rivers.” At their incomprehending stares, the jötun huffed. “I won’t talk until you’ve wetted my tongue. Or given me aught else to make straining my voice worthwhile.”

“But you’ve already taken _everything_ ,” Thor muttered, only to cover his mouth with a protective hand when Loki aimed a look at him. The jötun laughed. “Your gnashing teeth are safe from me, Asgardian. No, what I want is far more precious than your shining molars. I want payment in kind: a story for a story.”

“Is that all?” Volstagg chuckled. “We have numerous tales! Why, just before we came to Jötunheim, Thor recited–” the warrior cut himself off abruptly, cheeks staining as red as his beard. Loki cocked her head and looked at Thor, who tried to steer the conversation to safer shores. “I remember a few sagas by rote…”

The prince trailed off, likely realizing that the subject matter of his favorites were ill-suited for present company. Loki’s unimpressed stare told Hogun she had a fair few suspicions on what prompted their unease. “I doubt you’ll be able to pay my price,” she told them, tone dry and knowing, “for I want to hear a tale where a jötun helps someone from Asgard – or from Vanaheim – and doesn’t suffer for it by the end.”

It seemed an easy quest to undertake, yet the silence stretched on as they all rifled through the stories they knew. Hogun felt he out of all of them should have at least a tale or two, for Vanaheim hadn’t been as involved in the war with Jötunheim as Asgard. Yet the longer he thought, the more he grew to realize he couldn’t remember ever hearing a favorable word of the jötnar.

Loki gave a contemptuous _kh_. She rose, and without further word set about extinguishing the fire and packing away both coal and ash.

The trek down the mountain progressed in pensive silence, each of them occupied by their own thoughts. It wasn’t until later in the day, once they were finally finished with their exhaustive list of tasks and after they were allowed a chance for a proper bath in the hot springs under the mountain, that he looked at the caverns they were in and thought to return to the topic that had prompted Loki to tell them her story.

“So they called this Bergelmir’s Keep because Bergelmir once built a bloodforge inside a mountain.” The jötun blinked at him, taking a moment to follow the twist of his thoughts before she hummed affirmation. “But why was the bloodforge here abandoned?” He couldn't well understand it; the mountains seemed the most habitable part of Jötunheim he'd seen so far.

“Well…” Loki stretched out the word, thinking over her reply as she rebraided her damp hair. “There was a containment breach.” Hogun raised his brows. A slow smile crept along blue lips. “The forge had been experimenting with sting shrimp living in the underground lakes. They’re hard-shelled creatures, usually about this large” – she held her fingers perhaps four inches apart – “with many spindly legs and two long, thin antennae on their heads.”

Those hardly seemed cause enough to–

“And the limbs close to their mouths are tipped with venomous barbs that burrow through flesh. They stun their victims before eating them alive, and they tend to swarm so they can take down prey many times their size.”

Oh.

But Loki wasn't yet done with the description. “The mages were trying to make the shrimp bigger and better able to survive out of the water, with marked success." She held her hands several feet apart to indicate the creatures' improved size. "But they weren’t very glad of it when the specimens got loose…”

She clucked her tongue and went on in a lower tone, “Wasn’t much left to offer the crows, after. Others tried clearing out the forge, but there were just too many crevices and tunnels. So eventually, the bloodforge was forsaken.”

“Until Amma and I got here, at least,” she chirped, her whole demeanor changing in the span of a single sentence. “We stay clear of the lower chambers for the most part, and leave a hallaporo down here now and again to keep the shrimp fed and happy.” Hogun looked at the jötun in alarm. She laughed. “Oh, I didn’t mean _right_ here. Don’t fret, they shouldn’t stray too close to the hot springs.”

One black-nailed finger rose to tap at her chin as she gave a thoughtful hum. “Still, if you hear something skittering and scuttling about in the dark…” A toothy grin nearly split her face in half. “Well, you best be careful.”

Hogun huffed and shook his head, trying to appear unbothered by such a poor jest. For all that Loki and her mother seemed to delight in surrounding themselves with dangerous creatures, not even a pair of iviðjur would deign to live inside a mountain infested by giant, venomous shrimp.

…Would they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we're nearing the end of the story. Just one last, short chapter to go! Up next, Loki bids farewell to the Asgardians.


	7. Reward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki says farewell to the Asgardians.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for one brief albeit graphic description of a violent fantasy.

She’s almost sad to see the Asgardians go.

They’re so _entertaining_. Several times, she’s caught the quiet one scouring the caverns when he thinks no one’s looking; sometimes, when the Asgardians are settling in to sleep, Loki sneaks to the lower chambers so she can scratch her nails against stone and watch him startle. The big one has at least six different kinds of sighs for when his friends make a mess of things, and the warrior maiden laughs along with her whenever she tricks the two loudmouths into embarrassing themselves.

It’s laughably easy to rile the Odinson to a temper, and he’s ridiculous when he's angry, bellowing and blustering as his skin turns from the pale brown of a crab’s belly to the red of raw meat. It’s just as easy to unsettle the vargbait, too. He’s almost as fearful of her as he is of Fenrir, who’s taken to stalking him across the ice and lunging at him to scare him into fleeing.

She can’t remember when last she had so much _fun_.

It’s not that Loki is lonely – she has Amma and Angrboda and Fenrir and the other vargs, and all the children of the outlying villages and towns are always glad to know her company, so _of course_ she’s not lonely.

It gets boring sometimes, that’s all. Amma is often busy and won’t let her go to school and she’s not allowed to go more than half a tide’s flight from the mountains on her own, so she can’t just visit the Ironwoods or other places whenever she likes, and they make their rounds in the villages only a few times each cycle.

But there’s scarcely a dull moment with the Asgardians around.

She's never met people quite so helpless, before. She takes them back to the kelp fields, where they stumble into holes as the snow otters nip at their heels. She makes them milk the hallaporo, and nearly dies laughing at the squeamishness with which the warriors grip the udders. She has them clean the crab pool, where she sings a crab into latching onto Fandral’s leg in a most persistent manner.

Sometimes, Amma joins her in supervising. She towers over the lot of them, stone-faced and imposing while they fumble nervously about their duties. Once she and Loki are alone, though, she bursts out in raucous peals of laughter and makes suggestions for the Asgardians’ list of chores.

At the end of their stay, the party of poachers is worn ragged and Loki hasn’t done a full tide’s work in ages. Their captives are so glad they won’t be pressed into indentured servitude that they hardly protest when Amma pronounces their sentence and makes them swear to safeguard the herd at Nál and Loki’s behest. Even sealing their pact with a blood contract gains only token resistance.

Loki feels curiously despondent as she packs the big sleigh they use for trade visits and takes the Asgardians out of the valley.

She can’t honestly say she _likes_ any of them: They’re arrogant and loud and the way they sometimes look at her and her mother makes her want to press her nails into their pupils and watch the skin of their faces grow dark and dead while their eyes freeze through and shatter in their sockets.

But she does like bossing them around and humiliating them, and some of them aren’t quite as deplorable as the others, and now she’ll have to go back to doing her own chores…

She brings the freight sleigh to a stop once they’ve crossed the kelp fields where she first found the would-be cattle thieves. They climb out and grab the provisions and the bone spears that Amma and Loki have so generously provided them. “This is where we part ways,” she says, pulling a roll of parchment out of her satchel and handing it to Sif.

When she unfurls it, Loki points at the map and says, “See this line here? The portal site you described is along this route. Don’t worry about getting lost; the line left behind you fades as you walk past the path it marks, and darkens if you stray too far from it.” She earns herself a nod and a thank you. Loki scoffs and tells the Asgardian, “Well I can’t leave you out to die _now_ , can I? Not after all this trouble.” It’s not as though she could leave them out to die _at all_. The only reason they haven’t yet called their Gatekeeper for rescue is because their pride and their fear of getting caught yet outstrips their need.

Sif smiles and extends her hand, which Loki stares at with bemusement. She wonders when the asynja learned how to offer a cordial greeting between equals. Loki barks out a laugh and knocks the back of her palm against Sif’s wrist, neither accepting nor rejecting the gesture, and then makes a shooing motion with her hands. “Go on, back into the wild with you. Try not to drown in the snow.”

“Wait.”

Loki puts on her best _my patience is a puddle, not a lake_ expression as Thor steps forward. “Weeks ago, you asked us for a story featuring a jötun who offers aid to an Asgardian and isn’t repaid in suffering for it. I… We believe we may have a story for you.”

Oh? This should be interesting.

She gestures for Thor to go on, and he and his friends launch into a rendition of a young warrior goading, during a night of drunken revelry, four of his friends into accompanying him on a dangerous journey to a forbidden land, where they find themselves hopelessly lost. Until, in their ignorance, they attack a herd of beasts guarded by a fearsome frost giant.

They are soundly defeated. But rather than slaying them where they stand, the giant brings them to her home, where she and her mother offer the five foolhardy warriors a chance to redeem themselves. After several heroic tasks – Loki snorts at the heavily edited version of their daily drudgery – the warriors at last promise to guard the frost giant’s herd from both beast and poacher, and return to their realm wiser than when they left.

Loki’s smile is incredulous. “You think to bribe me with a tale of _yourselves_?” Thor and the others simply grin at her as though they’ve done something terribly clever. She lets loose a long trill, amused despite herself. “The exploits of a few drunken louts hardly compare to Bergelmir’s trials,” she grouches, “but I suppose my terms have been met.” Thor laughs and goes to clasp her arm.

She burns his palm for the presumption.

He curses and glares before pointing a finger at her face and stating, “When next we meet, you will tell us more of Bergelmir.” The Odinson is quick to withdraw his hand when Loki bares her teeth.

“I swear it so. _If_ you’ll ever be allowed to leave your realm again,” she replies, and climbs into her sleigh. She leaves the Asgardians standing in the snow with one final laugh; they may have sold Loki their own story, but the end of their tale has one last twist in store for them. Loki places a hand into her satchel, where the portal key she pilfered from the pocket of an unconscious prince hums against her fingers.

She wishes she could be there to see the looks on their faces when they realize they’ll have to call on their Gatekeeper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that concludes the story of how Loki met the Asgardians. Whew! This whole thing turned out a lot longer than I expected.
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed it. Thank you to all the wonderful people who left kudos or commented!


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